2015 Budget

On Sunday we shared our 2015 budget and wouldn’t you know people actually cheered after we talked about money!

So here’s the big idea, Jesus is doing amazing things in the life of our community and we get to be a part of that. We want to rally together the resources he has given us to use for his purposes and be on mission together to see and show people Jesus.

In 2014, our actual expenses were $230,576.08. As a church we gave $201,705.87 to the mission and other churches and Christians around the country gave us $65,140.00 to keep going on our church planting journey.

As we have grown into a church of around 140 adults and 35 kids we are feeling the need for more leadership and organization. We want the gospel to go deep in our lives as a community, transforming us, propelling us out far and wide with the good news. Many churches get stuck around this size due to growing complexity and lack of pastoral care to cultivate a mature discipleship culture. We want to be proactive in planning for maturity and mission.

We had a 3 year sustainability plan we may fulfill depending on growth in people and giving in 2015, but we may be on 4-5 year runway. With Jeremy, Aaron and Chuck all raising their support to be on our staff team, in various capacities, we have a huge opportunity to grow in a healthy way.

Some of the initiatives for 2015 that are increasing our budget to $384K:

Piloting an urban youth outreach program led by Jay Harris.

Hiring a worship leader to serve with our amazing volunteers.

Increasing our financial support for biblical counseling when those with in our church need it.

Hiring administrator to free up the pastoral team to keep focused on cultivating the discipleship culture.

Devoting 10% of our internal giving to strategically partner with 2-3 church plants.

We are planning for The Image to give $244K in 2015 based on last years giving and hopeful growth. We have $47K committed in 2015 from outside donors and we are in the process of trying to raise another $96K. We are praying for 15 outside partners to give the $96K we still need. If you know someone who would be interested in hearing about our vision and story to potentially support us, I’d love for you to connect me.

Not sure about you, but as the budget increases I’m tempted to “look down” and take some air out of the balloon so it’s not as scary. Let’s seek to ask the right questions about how to respond to the grace we have received, in love for Christ, our church and our city. Lets move forward without a scarcity mentality. Jesus has already proven he’s all in to love us and see his kingdom expand. He will provide all we need.

I’m excited to give into this mission with you in 2015, I’m praying all our planning is blown up in a few months and that we’ll see Jesus move in a way we couldn’t imagine.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this if you want to go into further detail about the budget or have any questions or concerns.

Because of Jesus,

Matt

*Fellowship Associates trains church planters and recently surveyed 13 of their US church plants with annual budgets under $400K. These percentages represent the average percent of total budget given to each expense category. Matt is currently an FA resident.Learn more at fellowshipassociates.com